Arc 3 - Chapter 53: A Train With A Cash Name

(Reverence 6, 59 / 6:59PM)

It was high evening.

The desert sun hovering above the horizon, the city lights flickered to life. The wind, which carried the warm furnace air, rippled through the endless alleys and streets that held dust. As the sky began to turn a pinkish red, the conductor swiped his forehead with his sleeve.

Pulling on the handle, the loud horn screamed throughout the station. With agents guarding the second and first floors, they felt their skin prickle by the warm grains of sand.

“Hey hold up…”

They all saw a man walking toward them.

Having light brown hair, he wore a black leather jacket, and slacks. His boots thudding the ground, his right side bang jumped with each step. As soon as he reached the center of the station, every agent on the first and second floors aimed their rifles at him.

“You must be a special case of stupid to come right to us! Willing to surrender, Luke Fenix!?”

Luke looked around the station, and noticed the layout of such an outdoor building. A bridge was in front of him, a platform for both the first and second floors, and there was of course the terminal. On the entrance to the terminal, and on the waistline of the bridge’s edge, were agents and guards alike.

And he began counting.

More than two to three stood in front of him, and they all had their fingers on the triggers. Trailing the bridge up top, and then beneath it, even more agents and guards positioned in back. Feeling their cold stares, they were like icicles, icicles that swept down his back.

—So there’s fifty of them…

“You better give me an answer right now! We're all told to turn you in dead or alive!”

Raising his hands in surrender, he took a step back. Even amidst the crosshairs that he was in, he kept his grin.

“S-Sorry! Just lost in thought!”

“You better not think of another plan! Or better yet, try to get on this train!”

“No worries! You don’t have to worry about yourselves!”

“Excuse me!?”

The agent at the bottom floor, the one who was speaking to Luke, grounded his teeth back and forth. Just one inch from pulling the trigger, his hand shivered, and Luke noticed it with a pale face. Feeling sweat protrude from his cheeks, everything in his body ran with adrenaline.

“What I’m saying is that I’m not going to harm you!”

“Then wipe that smirk off your face! I don’t wanna know what’s inside that head of yours!”

“But I’m not a criminal!”

“Yet you're dubbed a sinner. Last chance Fenix!”

Luke closed his eyes, but kept his hands and arms stalled in the air. Inhaling that musky stench of the desert, it raided the deepest part of his lungs. But upon exhaling it all out, he opened his eyes…

And replaced his smirk with a frown.

“I’ll go with you. But can I ask you all something?”

“And what would that be!?”

“How am I a sinner to you all?”

They still wouldn’t budge from their entranced defense, their guard hard as steel. Taking another step back, Luke felt his soles up to his toes grovel in static. Like fire ants were nibbling on his feet, he still kept his boots glued to the ground.

“Do I look dangerous? If I was in your point of view, you all would see a man of average height, and average weight. Well, more skinny than normal. To be honest, I look like any ordinary guy you’d see on the street…”

The wind began to intensify, but not that much for his clothes to ripple. His hair softly moving, and his fingers feeling the dryness of it, he gulped down saliva. The more he stood with a straightened back, the louder his blessing began to ring. Growing in intensity, it was a timer that he had no control of.

“And being a leader? Being a role model for my friends? If you all told me that I’d be some criminal mastermind, then I’d call you crazy. There ain’t no world where I’m that smart, or that confident.”

In truth, he still saw himself as average.

For every man or woman’s first impression of him, they’d think he’s nothing more than a background character. The way he presents himself, the way he walks, he talks; everything screams of normalcy. Except for his friends. After The Array, and especially after the Counterattack on Lagefor, everyone engraved their trust on him.

Trust that was beginning to crumble, but needed to be repaired.

“So I don’t understand why you all see me as some parasite, some virus that needs to be exterminated. I don’t know who gives you your news, but it seems critical thinking has—”

“Quit your yapping.”

The middle agent took a step forward, his finger still stalled on the trigger. Seeing both of his scleras hinting a shade of red, Luke’s blessing already blared his ears like a drum. The blood in his fingers growing pins and needles, that hot furnace wind finally began to die down.

“Start walking forward, before I shoot you down myself.”

Not a single grain pinched his fingers. Standing still, his beating heart began to dim from the throttling silence, silence that turned the background into a shade of white.

Before he gave them a smile.

—“I’ll test those odds.”—

He lowered his hands to his holsters. Barely reaching the butt of his uzis, he was about to pull them out…

“FIRE!!”

—“A hurricane of bullets savaged the air.”—

Hot lead reaching toward him, Luke had his uzis gripped by his palms. His fingers on the sides, he didn’t leap or jump. He didn’t even lunge forward. He just accepted the bullets with extended arms.

All fifty barrels exploded like a cannon, the air bending like rubber. Tinnitus blanketing his ears, he saw the bullets scream, bullets that whistled like banshees. Closing his eyes, and keeping his body straightened like cardboard, a smile enveloped his face.

Then came—

Something hot scraped him… but it didn’t stab him.

Time flowing the slowest it ever was for him, he slowly opened his eyes. Lead passed him by mere millimeters, nanometers even. From his clothes, hair, face, hands, guns, he welcomed the bullets with a warm sun glowing on his face. Until they penetrated the stone ground beneath him.

With a dust cloud growing around him, time returned to its present state. Fifty, one hundred, two hundred; it was a microburst of metal dug into that very spot. The recoil of their guns rattling their bones, they continued to mercilessly shoot with red in their eyes.

And then the bullets ceased.

The silence returned once more, and only a cloud of brown groveled the area where Luke was. Lowering their rifles, their barrels aimed at the floor, and they all squinted their eyes into the dust. For how many bullets they fired, no man could be that lucky… right?

“Seems like your luck has run dry?”

—The dust cloud was blown away.—

Soaring straight forward, was Luke himself. His boots spewing out candle-shaped flames, his eyes slanted inward, while both of his hands were equipped with uzis. The leader, whose face grew a deathly pale, was not fast enough to react in time.

Luke spun his body to the right. Playing a game of chicken, he didn’t tackle him, and he did not pull the trigger of his uzis. But that didn’t stop the agents… from spewing another hurricane of bullets.

________________________________________________________________________

—Shoot shoot shoot!

It was like a video game.

With his rocket boots, he swerved around crates and agents with the skin of his teeth. Avoiding their bullets, he hardened his gums, as the endless waves of lead tried to pierce him. Even when they grazed his boots, and his clothes, he continued to push forward with his blessing.

—Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot!

Spinning his body to the right, he kicked his feet back with sudden force. Swerving himself to the left, he almost crashed into a set of boxes. Speeding through small gaps, Luke barely squeezed through,

—Shoot!

A group of agents crawled out like insects.

Rising from the ground, and behind the crates, they shot out bullet after bullet from their barrels. Being right in the crosshairs, Luke did the only thing he could do…

—Shit! Here goes!

Straightening his whole body, he made himself parallel to the ground. Being a meter and a half from touching it, he felt the lead scrape against his clothing like usual. Yet no metal lodged in his body.

Making a somersault in the air, he spun back and twirled until he was finally straightened out. Now sprinting, he tightened his back and his chest, before jumping high in the air…

And resumed his soaring.

—Come on…

He heard the train whistle.

Its wheels beginning to scratch and turn, the railroad spewed embers from below. Grinding his teeth, and still having his boots spew out flames, he pushed his eyes on the spinning wheels. Kicking his feet back once more, all of his body felt the air push against him.

“Get him! He’s just one man!”

More bullets sprayed, and he spun around like a missile rotating clockwise. Having both of his hands grip his uzis, he ignored their shouts, along with their guns that blew smoke and lead. Trying so hard to reach that train, a train that already accelerated…

His boots flickered.

—Wha…

Rolling along the railroad track, he spun around twice before sprawling on all fours. Quickly getting up, he saw the train accelerating at a frightening speed. As gunshots blared behind, he bit his lower lip.

—What happened to my boots?

“There he is! Just shoot him!”

Unable to check on his boots, he sprinted toward that fastening train. Hearing his footwear click against the railroad, the metal of his boots shivered, and it traveled to his thighs. Pressing his teeth deep into his lip, blood sweltered down his chin and throat.

—Is it my fuel?! Why did it finally decide to run low!

Pushing his fingers deep into his uzis, the metal of his guns creaked and crackled. But because he was being shot at, the never ending bullets boomed in his ears. Like a broken record, he shook his head back and forth…

And glared with red eyes.

—Come on! Damnit come on! The train was right there! Right in front of me!

“Chase him damnit! He’s slower than us!”

His breathing fastening, and his whole body throttling in his sprint, the train continued to be nothing more than a distant memory…

But a creature appeared.

Luke saw it all in slow motion, as the galloping donkey leaped to his right. Stopping his sprint right, he widened his eyes, and instinctively extended out his hand. Once he did so, he grabbed the reign of the green donkey, and took no time to analyze how it got there.

Riding a galloping donkey, he immediately settled his butt on his back, while his left hand grappled the reins.

“It’s you! You’re the same donkey that rode me to Dodgerock!”

Chucking air harshly out of its nuzzle, the gap between the moving train and him began to decrease. Bit by bit, the bullets from behind numbed to background noise. Pushing up a grin, Luke tapped the soles of his boots to the donkey’s thighs.

“Ride like the wind!”

It sprinted in full force.

Going faster than it ever did, it was a good thing no bullets flew toward him. Seeing that he was edging closer toward that train, his eyes only worsened its reddened state.

“You got this! We’re halfway there!”

Being faster than the train itself, Luke felt his hair flap against his forehead, along with his clothes. He hardened all of his abs, and even his chest, but he heard a gunshot.

Upon instinct, the donkey swerved to the left, and Luke tightened the reins. From the very back of the train, came out a guard clastined in brown clothing. Carrying a carbine rifle, he didn’t open fire like a maniac. No. He had one eye close, while the other was pressed near the iron sights.

—He’s different from the others.

Hearing the reverb service bell, he swerved himself and the donkey to the right. Narrowly avoiding a bullet, his instinct screamed to dodge once more. Playing a game of tag with lead, getting shot wasn’t the issue…

But the gap between him and the train was growing.

—I’m sorry.

Just as the guard was about to fire, Luke drew out his uzi with a fast hand. Like he had accepted a duel, he snapped the trigger, and blew out a singular bullet from the barrel. So sudden, the guard fell to the ground, his rifle dropping almost immediately.

—But I have friends waiting for me.

Kicking the donkey gently, it poured another tenacious sprint toward the train. Closing the gap almost immediately, Luke pushed his uzi into his holster. Managing to put his feet on the back of the donkey, he adjusted his body so that he wouldn’t fall. In fact, he had so much unnatural balance, he began standing on the donkey.

Like riding a tidal wave, he almost lost his footing, but he stiffed his body like cardboard. Glaring forward, he calmed his nerves that were molded in steel, molded in the harshening bell that rang in his heart.

—This is it.

He took that leap.

Lunging with his attention locked onto the railing, he felt metal press against his cheek. And sprawling his arms and legs, pain pinched his face, but he shook his head. Getting up, he turned to face the guard who breathed heavily through flared nostrils.

“I only shot you in the liver. You’ll live, but you won’t get up anytime soon.”

Luke turned to see the donkey riding alongside the train. Instead of sprinting with full force, it was idly galloping at its own pace.

—Guess it really does like me.

Turning around, he took out his right uzi once more, and plunged his left hand into his pocket. Keeping it there, he walked toward the door, as it looked to be already opened. Using his right shoulder, he pushed against the metal, and slid in with low decibel boots.

—Now to find where they are.

Taking in the dim light, the cart was filled with luggages and suitcases on all sides. Cabinets being filled with them, the shelves were there for more or less organization.

Keeping his barrel low, he glanced at the shadows. The more he walked, he could only tread the ground with calmness in his nerves.

—Looks like a luggage compartment. From the looks of it, most of these suitcases look stylish rather than rugged.

Even through the desolate dark, he squinted upon the way those luggages appeared. Most of them were branded in little reflections of gold, and they had initials that engraved their first and last names.

Remembering Gabriel’s talk, he dumped info regarding the doubling of guards on the train. If that was true, then it could only lead to one thing…

—So the doubling of guards was more or less the acquisition of agents. Did Doug strike a deal with Gabriel, or was it Reed? Come to think of it, who controls the agency?

It wasn’t long before Luke reached the other door, and he looked down at the floor. Furrowing his eyebrows, and crinkling his temples, he could only shake his head before moving forward.

—Anyway, I should try to find the cart they’re in. They have to be all bound up in one cart, at least.

In the Zirardge train, there are 32 train carts that were doubled in width. Being dead last on the 32nd, Luke and the others only stood on the first train cart, which was outdoors with no walls or roofs.

—I have a long way to go…

His instinct roared once more.

Letting go of the handle, he quickly hid in a dark corner, before seeing the door burst open. Holding his breath, a group of guards with brown pass through him. Seeing them run toward the other side of the cart, they checked upon their fallen comrade.

The three of them seeing the wounded rest, his breathing was shallow. One of the agents, the one in the middle, pulled out a walkie talkie with his left hand, while his right gripped his revolver.

“Mills has been shot. I repeat, shot. The criminal might be still on board, over.”

The three agents glanced around the shifting landscape, as the wind blew against their faces and fedoras. One of them glanced down at the floor, and noticed a pair of footprints that were sprinkled in leather. Tiny sprinkles of burnt leather.

“Hey Rotten. Don’t you think these footsteps are…”

“Ah shit—”

They heard the door close.

Widening their eyes, they banged the door with the butt of their pistols, or the rifles that one man carried. Their cheeks flushing red, the leader himself growled and groaned, before thrusting his pistol into his holster. Taking out his walkie-talkie at last, he yelled with tears in his eyes.

“Luke Fenix is inside the train! Code red! Code fucking red! He’s inside!”